Amendment and Restatement of Plans for GUST - What's the going rate?

[chris]

What is the going rate to handle all aspects of amending and restating qualified plans for GUST???

------------------

[Dowist]

$500 to $50,000 depending on the complexity of the Plan.

[Kirk Maldonado]

For $500, you aren't going to get customized amendments that apply to your particular plan. In that case, all you would get would be photocopies of generic amendments.

I think $5,000 is a more reasonable estimate of the bottom end for individually designed plans, if you include updating the summary plan description and getting a new determination.

[Dowist]

Chris - sorry to be so flippant in the last response. Mr. Maldonado's response was much more helpful.

I don't know that there is rate that you can point to. In my experience a prototype or "computer-generated document" such as Corbel, is less expensive; some of them are "free" in the sense that the insurance company, broker, bank etc. will make its prototype available to you and will help you fill it out - but beware - you probably will get what you pay for in these situations - the worst drafted prototypes that I've seen were filled out by agents or brokers. If you have someone who knows what they are doing putting the plan into a prototype, and it includes services like the IRS filing and an SPD (a real one, not some computer-generated abomination), you're probably talking a minimum of $1500, but more likely $2500 to $3000. There are lots of "ifs" here and it is possible to get it for less if you have a really simple plan or if the company is subsidizing the work.

[Kirk Maldonado]

One problem with prototypes is that they often don't have the flexibility needed to prevent cutbacks in distribution options. Basically, once a distribution has been offered by a plan, that distribution option must be available forever for the assets held in the plan at the the time the option was in place.

If you are replacing a plan document with a prototype, you need to be very careful that all of the distribution options must be kept intact. Also, there are things that are protected against elimination that aren't what you would normally think of when you think of distribution options (e.g., foreclosure against an account balance because of a defaulted loan).

Many times I've had to prepare individually designed plans because the distribution options available under the prior plan document could not be shoehorned into a prototype plan.